


Breathing Life Into Monsters

by just_about_nothing



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Silence of the Lambs References, The incest is Oedipus not the characters, not as dark as tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 03:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_about_nothing/pseuds/just_about_nothing
Summary: This is strongly based off the scene from the movie Silence of the Lambs where Lecter's in the Memphis prison and he and Starling are talking. However, it also incorporates some of my favorite elements from Hannibal fanfiction too. The reference to John Marshall refers to how one couldn't concede a point to him because he'd end up convincing them of anything he pleased.





	Breathing Life Into Monsters

“Quid pro quo, darling.”

“Ask away. I keep my word.”

“Your least favorite childhood memory. What was it?”

“A one am text. I had been dumped.”

“By?”

“A lover. The first boy I loved. He felt we were incompatible.”

“Did you fight against it?”

“Quid pro quo, Doctor. I ask you keep your word.”

He gestures, a wide sweeping movement. We’re alone in his study. I’ve been given the world. 

“Dimsday says you know him,” I pause. He watches me think. “Did you treat him?”

“Arthur Dimsday, born two months pre-mature. Currently being held on suspicion of murder and kidnapping. Yes, I treated him. He had severe abandonment issues. His mother, you see, left.”

He stops. “Why did you love this boy?”

“He was kind and funny.”

“Many boys are.”

I correct him. “Many men seem to be. Few men are.”

“So this kind, funny boy-man thought the two of you were incompatible. What did you do?”

“We agreed to one question.”

“You answered two before.”

I incline my head in acknowledgement. He smiles. 

“You should not concede so easily.”

“You are no John Marshall,” I make him laugh outright.

“Darling, I am far worse than John Marshall.”

“He didn’t murder people.”

“Nor do I.”

“You kill _homo sapiens_ you view as less than human. Most people view that as pre-meditative murder.”

“You don’t.”

“I have far worse people to catch. Do not think I don’t know who dies by your hand.”

“Kathleen, I would never doubt you.”

The use of my first name has me off guard. I know it’s intentional because nothing isn’t for him. He doesn’t like the slant of the conversation. I don’t care. “It’s my turn, Doctor, or have you forgotten the rules?”

He smiles. His teeth are white and neatly aligned. I smile to think of him in braces -- I’ve seen his childhood photos and his teeth are crooked there.

“Why did his mother leaving cause such severe abandonment issues?”

“You’re not asking the right questions.”

“We have enough to convict.”

“So you need to _understand_.”

“I need the silence of the lambs.”

“Your metaphor is clumsy and overworked. I am no Hannibal Lecter and you are no Clarise Starling.”

“No? I, the spunky law enforcement officer, working with a killer? How is that different from Hannibal?” I raise my hand, palm facing him. “Rhetorical, _dearheart_. Not a question.”

“His mother raised him. His father left her. Classic Oedipus case.”

“You don’t believe in the Oedipus Complex.”

“There are far too many little boys in love with their mommys not to.”

“We agreed to the truth.”

He sighs. “Oedipus was by all accounts a fair and just king. He sired daughters, beautiful and wise. We remember him for his unknowing love affair with his own mother. We account incestous boys to him, despite those boys knowing they are morally wrong. Dimsday did not think he was morally wrong to love his mother the way he did. Until he came here, he was not even aware he’d been wronged. Do you think, Kathleen, you should convict a man with a broken mind?”

“There’s the guilty by reason of insanity plea for a reason.”

“So you agree a man with a broken mind should not be tried the same as a man with a fully functioning one?”

I’m being trapped. He knows it too, and knows I won’t move. 

“Yes.”

“So why are you?”

“By my count, doctor, that’s two questions.”

Then again, he’s sometimes wrong.

His lips purse and I smile the same smile I show to juries that might hang. He can’t argue. The agreement is one question per side. He asks, always, about me, and I draw on his psychological knowledge for my cases. He’s smarter but I’m more cunning and I know he likes to talk.

“Did you _show_ him the ways he’d been wronged?”

He lets the question hang in the air, knowing what I’m implying. If he doesn’t answer, we both leave. He wants to hear more about this first boy of mine.

“I did,” He does not pause to allow a follow up. “What did you do when this man-boy told you?”

“I cried for the weekend and made plans to tell him I still loved him, would always love him.”

He hums to himself. Love is not present in his life and I doubt he understands the pain of even a simple break-up.

“Would you like an independent psychiatrist to look Dimsday over?”

He looks up into my eyes. I do not enjoy eye contact and the doctor has always been courteous. 

“I was not aware this government to be so kind.”

“We have our moments.”

“Did your schemes work?”

“I didn’t implement them. What will this psychiatrist find?”

“A deeply delusionally man. He may receive a schizophrenia diagnosis.”

I rub at my wedding ring and his eyes track the movement. I am tired, of this game, of the doctor, of sitting here night after night, trying to prise answers out of a man not willing to give them. 

“Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you try and win this boy’s affections back?”

“He killed himself shortly before his sixteenth birthday.”

I have no more questions to ask and nothing more to say. I rise and leave my murderous husband behind to contemplate his loveless wife.

**Author's Note:**

> This is strongly based off the scene from the movie Silence of the Lambs where Lecter's in the Memphis prison and he and Starling are talking. However, it also incorporates some of my favorite elements from Hannibal fanfiction too. The reference to John Marshall refers to how one couldn't concede a point to him because he'd end up convincing them of anything he pleased.


End file.
